Five Easy Pieces (1970)::rating::5::rating::5::rating::5

B obby Dupea's life pinballs from one meaningless day to the next, powered by one-night stands and pints of plastic sour mash. He carouses with rowdy shitkickers and toils in menial jobs until the boredom and wanderlust overwhelm him. Bobby is loosely tethered to reality by a curdled relationship with a hee-haw diner waitress, Rayette…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 25, 20180Comments

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The Hate U Give (2018)::rating::4.5

W hen it comes to depicting teenagers, Hollywood generally puts its characters in two cheap, lazy categories: You have your vacuous, horny drunks on one hand, and drooling, dorky shut-ins on the other. Most teen movies have neither the patience nor the bravery to show complex, intelligent people fumbling through the fog of young adulthood,…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 25, 20181Comment

Laughable

Batman and Robin (1997)::rating::0.5

A s I suffered through the wretchedness of rewatching Batman and Robin, a visual metaphor popped in my head: The grainy footage of man's first failed attempts at flight. You've probably seen the montages before, where intrepid young men with twiddly mustaches and bowler hats mount winged bicycles and half-assed gyrocopters--mechanical ostriches destined to go…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 22, 20180Comments

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The Sisters Brothers (2018)::rating::3

T he Sisters Brothers takes place at an odd junction in America’s history. It’s 1851, and the American West as we know it is still embryonic. The characters in this film must navigate a social topography where boundless opportunity and unchecked mayhem flow in the same brick-brown river. Murder comes easily; alliances are cheap. Where…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 21, 20182Comments

The Podcast

Cinemavino – Episode 2 “One Small Step for Bland”::rating::0

This week, Travis and I drink a little red wine and talk about "First Man," and the Star Wars franchise. Our wine this week is a blend from Bonny Doon Vineyards called Cigare Volante. It's an American wine inspired by the reds of Châteauneuf-du-Pape, in France. Wines from this area in the Rhone region are consistently…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 20, 20180Comments

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Halloween (2018)::rating::3

T he Halloween franchise now spans forty years, long enough to spawn a host of terrible sequels, cheap knock-offs, and clever send-ups. This latest offering wisely heaves out the garbage from most of those predecessors and hones in on the trend-setting original, where Michael Myers terrorized a young, innocent Jamie Lee Curtis. Like the genre itself, Curtis…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 19, 20180Comments

Laughable

Saving Christmas (2014)::rating::0

"Y ou can't understand someone until you've seen the world through their eyes," Kirk Cameron tells us during Saving Christmas's mawkish opening narration. If nothing else, this film offers a fascinating glimpse into the intractable, sanctimonious way Cameron must view everything and everyone around him. His omnipresent voiceover brims with the serene, cheerful lunacy of…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 15, 20180Comments

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Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)::rating::3

B ad Times at the El Royale plays like Quentin Tarantino in third gear. In fact, just call it Reservoir Dogs on Beautiful Lake Tahoe. And while this film coolly copies the detached hipness and fragmented structure of Tarantino's early work, it's missing the ballsy, fuck-you attitude that made those movies so grippingly watchable. It's…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 13, 20180Comments

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First Man (2018)::rating::3.5

"Y our daddy’s going to the moon.” Janet Armstrong tells her son, in a voice shaking with pride and panic. “Okay.” The boy shrugs. “Can I go play now?” This exchange highlights the premise of First Man: Neil Armstrong, and the other astronauts who furthered the American ideal by reaching further and climbing higher…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 13, 20182Comments

The Archive The Drink Menu

Get Lost-ria in the Wines of Austria::rating::0

T wice a month, I will pair an all-time classic movie with a few killer bottles of wine. The vino will tie to the film, in some shape or form. For this first time around the track, I've decided to review the classic mystery, The Third Man. Its entire plot takes place in Vienna, Austria, so…

ByTodd WoffordOctober 11, 20180Comments